My startup investment roadmap
I’ve been on the operating side of tech startups for well over a decade: Engineer, CTO, BD, Product, and Founder. For the past four years, I’ve led product at AppDirect and prior I was the founder of Giftiki. I’ve grown with teams from 2 to 800, and I’ve worked with many of the Fortune 500 as customers.
Over the next year, I hope to make a few personal early-stage investments and share my experience. Below is how I think about today’s opportunities and where I want to contribute to the ecosystem — both my time and capital.
Companies that excite me
I’m looking for companies across SaaS, DevTools, IT/infrastructure, enterprise and emerging tech where I can be most helpful. More specifically, a few themes of interest:
Evolution of software development & teams. There are interesting signals: teams larger and more remote; non-technical businesses forming engineering cores; engineering department costs are increasing while leadership is wanting more output; products are growing more modular and complex. As an engineer/PM, I’m constantly looking to abstract my non-core complexity to a 3rd party — DevTools/IT/Infrastructure demand will continue to expand. •• I’m looking for startups that help speed development, improve the developer team’s quality of life or provide overall organizational efficiency (we haven’t seen many DevTools at the engineering management layer yet). I want to talk to startups working on these problems or helping to solve: on-premise management, deployment, reduce dev costs, functional/serverless computing, real-time, and post-REST API technologies.
Enriching traditional enterprise through technology. The Valley trends towards celebrating disruption. While I share this excitement about industries reluctant to evolve, I am also drawn to startups trying to build technology products/platforms around more traditional businesses as providers. These are enterprises with an existing large customer base who are proactively making strategic moves or reactively fighting disruption.
•• I’m looking for startups who see opportunity through technology enablement, rather than displacement, across any and all industries.
Second-wave enterprise solutions. We will see a second wave of technology adoption from enterprises who, over the last ~5–10 years, have bought solutions from startups who’s tech isn’t fully meeting their maturing needs. Enterprise adopters are transitioning from reluctant to savvy and startups must match this new level of expectation. These once-new startups are now vulnerable to the technology lifecycle and their customer’s growing sophistication. Once fresh and shiny, these startups are now larger products slowed by their own weight, tech, and codebase — with teams filled with tremendous learnings. •• I’m looking for these experienced teams who can empathize with the transformative enterprise and their IT/SaaS burden. These are ideally enterprise product companies with scalable, repeatable widgets and product lines.
Industry focused applications & solutions. Intense vertical domain expertise carving new categories and into existing lines of business. We see a growing number of founders coming from vertical sectors with extensive experience who, supported by the right technical founding team, can build their industry’s next market leader. •• I want to meet tech-forward industry experts who aggressively challenge legacy incumbents. Natural athletes are winners.
Emerging technology (WTF? tech). These are companies where you ‘know it when you see it.’ I generally don’t like pure technology startups; instead, I look for companies that apply outstanding technology to their deliver their mission. •• I’m less moved by an ML-as-a-Service type of startup compared to one focused on an industry vertical heavily applying ML to become 10X better than the alternative in the market. Computer vision, human/tech interaction, sensors, flight, automation, unique data sets… let’s nerd out together.
How I can help
You’ll discover in our first conversation that I love early-stage teams and the products that they craft. My contribution is substantial even if my check-size is small. I’ll partner with you on strategy, engineering, and product and will leverage my network wherever possible to fuel your growth. My goal is to help you hack your way smarter and faster through milestones to win the market.
My contract to you
I’ve been in your shoes and understand your journey. I will do my absolute best to respond to all founders, but my time to meet with everyone is unfortunately too limited. I commit to you that I will follow through with conversations and provide feedback. Finally, if I invest, this means I’m committing both my time and money. We will build this together.
Let’s talk
Feel free to email me at my bryanjowers at Gmail. Introductions through my network are more meaningful and encourage you to find one.
